NARAL President Talks About Her Abortion in DNC Speech

It may be the first time a personal story of an abortion has been shared on a convention stage.

Bill Clark/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, may have made history at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday afternoon when she talked about her own abortion. Hogue opened her remarks by talking about a time years ago when she learned she was pregnant. “I wanted a family, but it was the wrong time,” she said. “I made the decision that was best for me—to have an abortion, and get compassionate care at a clinic in my own community.”

A spokeswoman from NARAL said she believed this was the first time a woman had talked about her abortion at a presidential convention (at least a nonmedical one). On Twitter, Steph Herold, co-founder of reproductive rights advocacy group the Sea Change Program, said Hogue had “shattered that stigmatized glass ceiling.”

Hogue noted that one in three women will have had an abortion by the age of 45. “You see, it’s not as simple as bad girls get abortions and good girls have families,” Hogue said. “We are the same women at different times in our lives—each making decisions that are best for us.”

Watch Hogue’s full speech below:

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate